I'm in a bit of a dilemma and was hoping you guys could help me out with some decisions. My undergrad GPA is going to be between 3.1-3.5 (is at 3.3 now) when i graduate this year with a finance marketing double major, and i have an LSAT of 171. I'm going to be taking a year off after graduation to work with my parents who run their own legal practice. Its a pretty small practice but its growing and i'm mostly going to be working on the business side of things/internal operations and just helping out with admin stuff and setting up the internal systems for things as we hire more people.
I spent alot of time during my undergrad working there, often to the detriment of my grades, as I essentially functioned as the receptionist but also had to do most(all) of the admin stuff as the other employees are all lawyers. It has been the right decision in the long run i think, i enjoy working there and the practice is well past the struggling early stages now and is doing pretty well these days & requires less work from me. However i've had a really crappy undergrad college experience. at the end of my freshman year i transferred from the top 50 school i was at, back home to a university which is in my hometown (its okay, think top 200), just so i could be able to work there (the previous admin person quit because of the workload and not being paid enough LOL). i really did not have the chance to make many friends as i was quite busy for most of my undergrad period and i attended a large school where most people formed social groups in freshman year & move off campus as sophomores. on top of that pretty much all of my high school friends moved away for college and won't be back til graduation.
Anyway, by the time 2018 rolls around the business will be in a much more stable state and I will be able to move away for law school and wont be constrained geographically anymore. I did manage to keep a few really good extra-curricular activities over the years, so the non-grade portion of my resume reads very well, I am mostly worried about my GPA at this point.
Anyway, the plan is for me to go to law school and then work in the family practice after graduation. However after working really hard for the last few years, and having a job lined-up already post law school, I'm really looking at law school as a way to sort of have an undergrad experience that I have missed, or at least, go to a school that has a good social life. I know it is law school and people will be busy & studying, and things are quite serious - and thats fine. I'm naturally pretty studious anyways and it helps that I really like law and genuinely want to learn as much as i can. But being involved in fun extra-curricular activities and having a good social life are some factors that are pretty important to me when choosing a law school because I've started to go crazy from working long hours most days of the week and spending weekends studying/extra-curriculars/catching up on stuff that i missed (thank god for lecture capture).
So in essence I'd love to hear some recommendations on law schools that are a good school, but also somewhere where the cohort is quite close-knit, people form good friendship groups, its in a city where there is alot to do, and life outside of the classroom in general would be pretty good. I may decide not to return home and stay in the city where I go to law school if i really like it, so i dont want to go somewhere thats crap. I feel like alot of the suggestions will be schools whose name carry a big weight in their state/city but less so outside of that area - which is fine tbh and probably what im looking for
tl;dr which law schools have a good social life + are a respectable law school in general, that i can get into with a 3.3 gpa, 171 lsat, and good extra curriculars
thanks so much in advance !
